Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-11-01
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

LILA WHEELER WlLCOHs
No more unique, distinctive, and at the
same time popular character stands before
t people to-day than Ella Wheeler
EW llcox.
Born in Wisconsin village some thirty
odd years ago, when Wisconsin was no;
much more than a frontier state, without
Influential friends or family, and without
money, she made for herself name in
| literature which commanded attention
before she WAS eighteen years old. To
fone who knows it in detail her history
reads like q fairy story. Reared on q
| western prairie, she is an ornament to
the most brilliant circles OF the metrop-
oils.
:. She had never seen en- editor or literary
person snd knew nothing Of the methods
Of getting into print when, at fourteen,
she read her first production to the press.
The New York Mercury published these
childish efforts which were written in
prose and under nom-de-plumes.
II declined the first poem she ever sent
for publication, and the editor sarcastic
ally advised her to "crush her ambitions
TO be poet"
TIE Waverly Magazine has the honor
70 be the first TO present the name of Ella
Wheeler to the public.
Frank Leslie sent her the first check
she ever received st seventeen years OF
age.
From that time to the present day she
has never swerved nor feltered in the
steady, hard climb toward success.
She never sent manuscript IN her life
for criticism and never asked for aid or
influence in her literary ventures
During the last fifteen years Ella
Wheeler has probably been the most crit
icised, abused, praised, misconstrued AID
admired woman in the literary world.
Without particle OF effort to create a
ssensation, everything she has in that
time written has had the effect of stirring
up criticism.
Her writings seem to be possessed Of a
certain something combustible in their
composition, that on striking outer sir
invariably rends it with more or less Of
an explosion.
her first published book was "Drops OF
Water" collection Of juvenile temper
ance verses. These were crude but filed
with the dramatic enthusiasm which has so
permeated her later work, and provoked
praise and censure in proportionste guam
titles from the contending forces On the
liquor question.
"Shells," O little volume now out of
print, comes next.
"Maurinne," by many considered her
finest work, and the famous Poems OF
Passion which set the literary world Oh
fire, followed within three years Of eacb
other.
Columns Of abuse and praise Items rid
iculipg and eulogizing the latter volume
filled all the papers in the country.
Some OF her friends urged her to sup
press the book after its first appearance,
but strong in the courage Of her convic-
tons, she read the severe and unjust re-
views through tears, not unmixed with
smiles at sight of the golden coins which
punctusted the comments Of the critics.
Many of these dollars were spent In
building home for sging parents, and
much of the halo now surrounding this |
woman's life is the re Election |
of the generous deeds OF her esrly monied |
life.
Milwaukee people gave her "benefit"
IN MAY, 1888, when she was made the cub
Jet OF speech by s United States Sens-
.or and was presented with china basket
$500 in gold.
Long before her happy marriage in May,
1884, with the elegant and cultivated gen.
;leman who brought her to the east, her
lame was household word and she was
. welcome guest in the best circles of the
,reat northeast.
To her rare genius were added unusual
traces of person. She was brilliant
md tacttul talker, q good dancer, and 8